


The New Assistant

by Carbon



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 10:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon/pseuds/Carbon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Aperture's later days, Caroline's workload becomes rather intense so an assistant is hired for her. Unfortunately, he turns out to be incredibly incompetent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Assistant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grab_bag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grab_bag/gifts).



Sometimes the workload at Aperture could get intense. As with any science foundation, the employees could be working potentially eighty-hour weeks or more. With the number of actual _employees_ dwindling, however, the work week was becoming longer and longer for the devoted few who remained. Cave Johnson and Caroline, of course, were there all the way, but there was only so much they could handle.

Tuesday morning, Caroline had sat at her desk, large mug of coffee in hand. She hadn’t actually slept at all the previous night, and it certainly showed. With heavy bags under her eyes, she glanced at her research notes, though some of the words just seemed to run together.  She wished she could sleep. It seemed that these past few weeks, sleep was a rare commodity, and she savored it when she could, but it was never enough. Logically she knew that sleep deprivation could hurt her research, but what else was she to do? Mr. Johnson had a schedule and he was working just as hard.

Even with the coffee, it was so tempting for Caroline to just take a break and fall asleep at her desk. No, she didn’t want to; she would be a terrible assistant for doing so. What would Mr. Johnson think? Mr. Johnson always treated Caroline with the utmost respect, but that’s because she had earned it! She had to do the work, she had to stay awake… But surely just resting her head down for a couple minutes wouldn’t hurt, right? Just for a minute or two to regain some energy, to wait for the coffee to kick in…

What woke Caroline up after about ten minutes of dozing atop her desk was the sound of a masculine voice speaking in a rather quick British accent, “Ah—yes? Hello?”

Groggily lifting up her head, Caroline spotted a short red-haired man standing by her door holding a stack of papers.

“Ah good! Yes! You’re awake! I mean, you know if you’re sleeping on the job, I won’t exactly tell the boss but I’m guessing you were tired. Yes, tired. I, ah, see that mug of coffee there, probably trying to keep you awake. Good stuff, coffee…”

The man loved to speak, it seemed, and Caroline could barely process why he was here. She took a few moments to gather that she had in fact fallen asleep for several minutes before straightening herself up in her chair and stacking up the papers she had drifted to sleep upon. Looking up at the man, she finally cleared her throat before speaking, “Can I help you?”

Immediately stopping his previous train of speech, the young man at the door straightened up, beginning a new topic. “Ah, I’m your assistant! The boss hired me to help you out since I guess things can get a bit busy around here, yeah?” He stopped and moved his head around in different directions, as if to confirm the “around here” part.

“Assistant?” Caroline blinked a few times, attempting to process this information. She didn’t need an assistant. She _was_ an assistant! Perhaps she had authority over most of the employees, but someone working directly under her to take a load of work away… well, actually she supposed that wouldn’t be too bad. Eyeing the mug of coffee for a moment before turning her attention back to her assistant, she smiled. “What’s your name then?”

“Oh! A name. I have one of those. It’s Pendleton. Just call me Pendleton.” The wide-eyed look on Pendleton’s face changed to a soft smile when he realized that Caroline seemed to be accepting him.

Perhaps Caroline, however, felt a small pang of hurt when she realized that Mr. Johnson had likely hired this man for her. Was he trying to say that she wasn’t capable enough? That sentiment alone could have pierced a bullet through her workaholic heart right then and there, but she had to shake it off for now. She had to accept this as a gift; perhaps she could finally get more sleep in the incoming nights.

But still… Mr. Johnson. It wasn’t that she was in love with him by any means. Or, at least she told herself she wasn’t. Perhaps she was, but he was married and she knew her limits. She would never do anything to compromise Mr. Johnson or his marriage, or especially his job. She owed so much to him for giving her this wonderful job, for treating her with the utmost respect… Mr. Johnson wouldn’t do this as an insult to her, right? It was a gift. He respected her like she respected him, and this was a token of said respect.

“All right Pendleton. Welcome to Aperture.” Caroline put on her best smile. Of course, she could ask the new employee to do a million things; she was swamped in work and didn’t even know where to begin. But he was just an assistant. Could Caroline really trust Pendleton to handle the research notes, conduct experiments? No, of course not. He was just here to pick up some of the slack, right?

“I suppose you could start by organizing some of these files here.” Caroline gestured to the filing cabinets in the corner of the room, many of the drawers already open and stuffed with a myriad of papers. The floor itself had papers strewn about: lab notes and employee files, all of which could be easily organized if the time was available. Fortunately, that’s what Caroline’s new assistant was here for, so she breathed a slight sigh of relief knowing that her office could be a bit more organized. Pendleton immediately set to work, rifling through the papers, and Caroline turned her attention back to her own research.

“Hm… okay…. Let’s see we have a file on, ah… Joe Sanders.” The West Country accent piped up from Pendleton’s corner of the room, though Caroline ignored it for now, figuring her new assistant was simply attempting to get used to what he was doing.

“Male, thirty-seven, from… Idaho? Really? I mean who lives in Idaho anymore? So does he grow potatoes or something? I knew a guy once who really loved those things – totally obsessed, in fact! I mean he had a lot of recipes and made me this dish he invented once; kind of disgusting, if you ask me…”

He was still on that one file, looking over Joe Sanders’ name as far as Caroline could tell, so she looked up from her work, attempting to conceal her growing annoyance. “Pendleton?” She spoke somewhat softly, but her tone was firm. The unsaid implication being _Get back to work_.

“Oh right! Sorry, mate.”

 With a sigh, Caroline returned to note taking, uninterrupted for another couple minutes until Pendleton found another file to talk about.

 “Werdiger? Oh man, what kind of name is that? Sam Werdiger? I’ve never even heard of such a name before, but here it is right here in front of me—”

 “Pendleton…” Caroline didn’t look up from her work this time, and her voice was a bit less polite, a little more irritable.

 Yet again, Pendleton shut himself up, going through the files and attempting to sort them until he encountered another that truly caught his eye. “Huh! George Wheatley. Wheatley. I like that name. You know I kind of wish I had that name. Haven’t heard it before but it has such a catchy sound to it, don’t you think? Sounds a lot better than ‘Pendleton’ at any rate. You think you could call—”

 “Why don’t you file the experiment logs instead?” Caroline spoke the request a bit louder, attempting to be heard over another of Pendleton’s tangents. Maybe then he wouldn’t make quips about people’s names. Or maybe he would finally just stop altogether and do his work. What a nice thought.

 “Oh, right. Sure, okay. I’ll do that…” Moving to the other filing cabinet, he hummed a bit to himself, flipping through the pages of paper. He did speak to himself a bit, repeating the names of the experiments albeit softly, not enough to really distract Caroline.

 It wasn’t long, however, before Pendleton’s musings became louder and he started adding his own commentary. “So this experiment thing you have here—the, ah—” Pendleton flipped through a few pages, looking for the experiment’s title. “—The Aperture Science Elasticity Enrichment Exercise… I mean, I can see where you’re going with this, but oh man I have an idea that would be so much better! So what if you took, you know, like, toning cords. Yeah, you know, those things that you work out with. Those could probably hold a lot of weight, right? I mean, it says that the experiment is testing out how much weight these elastics can hold. Well obviously if you took a toning cord, I mean those things are used by really muscular people, right? Yeah they could probably hold the weight of an average person if you dropped them in.”

 “Pendleton, please!” Caroline was doing her best to remain polite, but signs of irritation were breaking through, giving a harsh edge to her voice, causing her eye to nearly twitch. “I simply asked you to organize these files.”

 “Right, right, I know, but you know, I think I’d be put to great use coming up with these experiments.” Pendleton turned, facing back toward Caroline, gesturing wildly with his arms as he spoke. “I mean, this is a science facility and all, I think you could get a lot more out of me that way!”

 “No, we’re fine right now in that area. I just need someone to assist me.” Really, where did Mr. Johnson find this man? He didn’t ever seem to shut up. Perhaps Mr. Johnson was simply too busy to interview him properly, or he was just desperate; either possibility seemed likely, and Caroline sighed once more as she thought about it. Rubbing her temples, she looked back at her notes.

 The day continued on with Pendleton interrupting every now and then, though Caroline had done her best to tune him out. Still, she did calmly tell him at times to please stop talking or get back to work. It was just his first day, though, so she cut him a bit of slack, though she wasn’t entirely pleased to find that he had barely made a dent in sorting out the files. However, like she had told herself, it _was_ just his first day. Tomorrow would be better.

 But the day after was hardly better. Pendleton kept spouting off ideas, only moving through the files at an incredibly slow pace. Caroline’s own work was only getting done much slower than normal as she was constantly distracted.

 The third, fourth, and fifth days were even worse, and by the beginning of the next work week, Caroline’s patience was about to run out. She had dealt with a variety of employees, and this one seemed to really grate on her rather quickly. She hadn’t yet had a chance to speak to Mr. Johnson about Pendleton, and she was admittedly curious to hear his reasons for hiring him. It was probably a misunderstanding; he’d be transferred to a more useful department or else just become a test subject.

 Yet again, Pendleton began sorting through the file cabinet, though Caroline wasn’t sure why he continued to have him do such a thing. She gave him various tasks throughout the past week, but he wasn’t able to hold his attention long enough to be effective at anything. Even if the filing was done uncharacteristically slowly, at least he was doing it. Still, that meant that Caroline had to hear yet another experiment idea from him. She managed to tune out most of it.

 “I can be the ideas man, you know. Just come to me and say, ‘Hey, Pendleton! We need a new experiment!’ and I can respond, ‘All right, how about the Aperture Science Immobility Yarn?’ and you go, ‘Brilliant, mate!’” Pendleton’s mouth broke out in a wide grin, flinging the experiment files behind him in a fit of excitement.

 “No, Pendleton, that’s… quite all right,” Caroline spoke, her voice harsh but tired. “Mr. Johnson comes up with most of the ideas here. I don’t think he’d want to be usurped.” Mr. Johnson was the brains around here, and nobody could really compare to what he had to offer. Especially not _this guy_.

 “The boss? Well I should talk to _him_ , then! I’m sure he’d love to hear my ideas!” Pendleton promptly stood up, leaving all of the unsorted files back on the ground. With a great eagerness, he dashed out of the room, giving no time for Caroline to offer any objections.

 However, she was still quick to page her boss, informing him of an impending annoyance. Mr. Johnson grunted irritably at the information, mumbling something about how he doesn’t need to be bothered with morons and their dumb ideas.

 Pendleton did actually make his way to Mr. Johnson’s office, though, and obviously he must have been taken care of, because Caroline never saw him again. Well, almost never. It turns out Mr. Johnson actually was inspired by Pendleton’s ideas, though Caroline would never come to find this out, at least not in this lifetime.


End file.
